Posted
by
Soulskillon Wednesday May 07, 2014 @02:03PM
from the turning-somebody-into-one-of-the-x-men-would-also-subdue-fear dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The fear of flying or of skittering spiders can mean more than just a momentary increase in heart rate and a pair of sweaty palms. A hard-core phobia can lead to crippling anxiety. Now an international team of researchers says it believes it has found a way to silence the gene that feeds phobic fear via a novel mechanism of gene regulation associated with fear extinction. The notion appears to be that phobias arise from experiences that have left an outsized imprint on gene expression, and that undoing this can undo the anxiety itself. The study was published this month (abstract) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

So does stupidity. How else are you going to get someone to go put their life on the line fighting to prop up abusive regimes in far off nations so that we can secure exploitative mineral export deals?

Probably, but even if you take aware natural fears like claustrophobia or fear of snakes, spiders or the dark you'll still have intellectual fears. Nobody naturally fears going to prison - okay maybe the claustrophobia or the prison rapes but not the deprivation of liberty as such, that's an intellectual thing because you've learned about the law where your rational mind tells you that if you do crime you might get caught and might go to prison. If there's a correlation I think it's because you become more

A phobia is a lot different from a regular fear, and different in more than just a degree of fear. This treatment, if the research pans out, is not about removing fear but about fixing specific phobias.

I've got a phobia, and it is not like your general anxiety or misgivings about a situation. You can walk into a situation and think everything is fine and then suddenly freeze up. Sort of like going to the humane shelter to pick out a puppy and when you get there the sound of barking causes your palms to sw

fear is probably one of our oldest (evolutionary speaking) emotions. how many other systems within body/mind could possibly rely upon it?

With something as fantastically complex and interconnected as the brain, altering it to handle a superficial manifestation of something as primitive as 'fear' couldn't possibly have wide ranging side effects could it?

The Divergent series is all about gene manipulation including the fear gene. If only it was a more logical take on a society using gene manipulation. Anyone who read the Divergent series all the way through must be wishing they had this fear controlling gene modified so they wouldn't have had to suffer through the last two books.

Since nobody reads, or seems to understand, they are not manipulating any genes here.

They found that learning to extinguish fear causes expression of a gene.

In common western medicine fashion, the important thing here is not that behavioural methods are effective in changing gene expression, but we can now remove the stimulus for gene expression (a persons conscious control) and package it up into a pill to sell for profit!

they want to screw with our minds? Worse - with fear?
You can't like start with getting rid of diabetic tendencies? Or even give us the power to choose our own skin color? One sure way to end racism in the US at least (of course we would probably have to change hair type as well).

Medication to change skin color would result in a lot of strife. For example it is simply easier to be a white person that a darker person in America. I think that given the option most black folks would want to be white or at least have their kids be white. That would almost cause an extermination in appearance of black folks. It might also mean that black folks who are very dark would want to appear a bit less black at the very least. One can only imagine the shock of change and the response of

You appear to believe me when I said there would be a large market for it, but prefaced your agreement with me with an unsupported comment that it would cause strife.
How? Why? People upset that others used their color? That sounds like complaining, not strife.
Note I assume that the process would be cheap enough for middle class people to purchase.

My phobia is getting worse as I get older. I didn't even have it in my 20s.

One of the problem is that I do think to myself that it's just a stupid thing and that I should act like an adult and not let it bother me. But then it does bother me enough that I feel the panic rising. When it's over I'm beating myself up for being stupid and not acting like an adult, with all of that fueled by the leftover surge of adrenaline.

Mine's not that bad, but imagine someone who felt they had to walk down the street to

The good thing is that religion would end because no one would fear that Hell place that is crammed into ones head as a child, but the bad thing could be that we may die out sooner because we would not fear the bear coming to eat us.
The deeper side though thinks that this might be a GREAT idea because I am afraid of heights and flying. In order for me to get on a plane I have to pretty much take enough sedatives to kill a horse. There isn't anything out there strong enough to where I have no clue of my surroundings. I also have anthropophobia which causes me to work from home and conduct business over the phone, text, email or online. It is very difficult for me to be around crowds of more than 5-6 people at a time.

"The good thing is that religion would end because no one would fear that Hell place that is crammed into ones head as a child, but the bad thing could be that we may die out sooner because we would not fear the bear coming to eat us."

IOW it's great for New Yorkers but they already don't believe in God and also not in bears.

The military will want it to make soldiers not to fear bullets or death, after all only 25% of the soldiers are able to fire their weapons because of fear.

I stand by the fact that people who aren't afraid of heights have brains that don't work correctly. Your brain is trying to keep your dumb ass alive by making you not go near ledges and stuff. We're afraid of bugs and spiders because they're often poisonous. Same with snakes. I'm not afraid of snakes at all so guess who's more likely to get bit, me or someone who's afraid of snakes? So why correct something that is a benefit? You know what my solution to spider phobia is? Kill the spider.

I don't fear snakes either. That doesn't mean I don't give them a wide margin until I positively identify them as non-poisonous. At least I don't run for cover when I see a snake only to discover that my hiding place has spiders.

There are other phobias that have little to do with normal situations. Such as not afraid of heights but afraid of bridges. Afraid of the number thirteen. And so on.

So you think you just get rid of spider phobia by killing it. How do you kill it if you can't even be in the same room? If you try to kill it with a broom and then your brain starts screaming that it's going to run up the broom and get to you, and that maybe if you stay still it won't notice you're there. It's really funny if it's someone

Reagan took the debt from $1T to $3TBush Sr took it from $3T to $6TClinton took it from $6T to $5TBush Jr took it from $5T to $12TObama from $12T to $17T.

Add it up, Republicans overspent $12T out of $17T debt. So it's only 70%.

And Obama had to deal with the mess of the Bush tax cuts (again, spend only republicans) and an actual recession (when the government actually should be spending). But, yeah, all $17T is his fault. If you're a fucking idiot.

>Do any of you realize you are biased against conservatives because you have been *trained* to be?

Does it occur to you that we're biased against conservatives because people who self-identify as conservative keep saying deeply stupid things in public. See just about any Republican politician, or check out the insane conservatives that use tags like #TGDN, #TCOT, and #REDNATIONRISING on Twitter. They just keep feeding each other fake quotes, and reinforcing a hatred of anyone who isn't as delusional as they are. They think that intelligent liberal people are their enemy, when really the enemy is the "conservative" media that filled their heads with nonsense.

Conservative didn't always mean crazy/stupid, but it sure does now.

>what is so bad about individual liberty, natural rights and limited government huh?

Then there's the whole Rush Limbaugh tough on drug abusers except when blowhard radio personalities take so much non-prescribed oxycontin their ears quit working. Why hasn't he had himself locked up? (just Google, there's far too many references to link)

I think we have reached the point at which being a conservative must be regarded as evil. One issue is the constant sheltering and support of race hate groups. The second issue is wanting to control the actions of others with belief systems that want to regulate abortion or pornography. If one dislikes abortions then simply don't have one. If one dislikes porn then don't consume porn. The notion that one's personal moral beliefs must be stamped upon everyone else is just wrong. Then there is

"Which was the party that pushed for and passed civil rights legislation over the objection of which other party? Which party was Robert Byrd from? Then there's that whole civil way thing that Lincoln used to free the slaves (simplification I know), which party was he from again, was that Democrat?"

You are making a common modern mistake. You are using the Progressive/Conservative categories and Democratic/Republican parties interchangeably. The time frame you are talking about the Democrats were the conserv

And now you have shown why there is no longer any civil conversations in modern politics. You have repeatedly requested a citation for contentious claims. I provided a URL that backed up my statement and you instantly jump to insults and insinuations.

The problem with your statement is you start with the presupposition that your worldview is correct. Those who are against abortion feel that way because they perceive an unborn child as a human being who has a right to life. Yet liberals always frame the argument as "conservatives are against women's rights" (even though it's only a single "right" in question).
Then again, phrasing it that way changes the frame of the discussion from women's rights to "when does life begin?", which is much harder to arg

since by scientific definition life begins at conception, and by genetic definition the fetus is a human being.

By scientific definition life began somewhere 3.5 billion years ago, just once, and we are all just a continuation of that one single starting point. Life replicates by splitting a living part of itself off into a separate entity, not by jump-starting new life in a separate piece of inert matter.

The question is when the mother and child become separate beings, rather than just the one being a growt

It's more like liberalism has set itself up as the One True Truth[tm], and anyone who disagrees with it is branded as outcast, evil, insane. Progressives have labels for people who disagree with them, and being labeled like this is grounds to lose your job or have a SWAT team called on you in the middle of the night. They simply don't understand how anyone can hold a contrary opinion. They also can't understand how they could be racist as well, even though they think that people can't think for themselve

No one thinks it might be a good idea to unplug that cable from the back of your heads for a few minutes and let reason take over for a bit, and to see what comes from that?

Please; You have no room to talk. If you had actually dared to face reality rationally you would not be so worked up about such meaningless things.
You are participating in inherently irrational behavior and crying foul because others are a teensy bit more irrational than you.

I responded specifically and directly to the only point raised about which I cared; the one I quoted. You reply with more political nonsense.
Congratulations, you broke the rust of the old cogitator and fired it up to let 'logic' happen with regards to one very tiny piece of your life and then you rushed to shut it off again just as fast as you could... Congratulations again! Seriously you are now more rational then the majority of people on the planet.